My wife and I were invited to a behind-the-scenes tour of the Cleveland Museum of Art exhibit, Art of American Indians: The Thaw Collection. The curator told elaborate stories about how this fantastic art came into being, weaving in thought-provoking tidbits and anecdotes.
We snaked through various rooms, all adorned with wonderful art. As the curator completed the tour, we found that we had seamlessly been deposited in the gift shop. What struck me was that this was earned income in use.
The CMA provided a terrific tour and service. We were all enthralled and didn’t want the experience to end. The collection, lighting, wall colors, the confident voice of the curator, all contributed to a fantastic experience–one that I wanted to take with me, even if in a very small way.
So when debating whether your NPO should consider earned income, frame your thinking in terms of the benefit, the unique experience your organization provides the community or even our culture; it may be symbolized by the product or service you offer, or perhaps it needs a catchphrase, a memorable slogan or clever encapsulation of what your mission is all about.
If you’re not sure how to turn the positive contribution your organization makes, into earned income of some kind, we can help.
OC
Many people feel that “non-profit” is a less than ideal term. For instance, it has been said that non-profit organizations shouldn’t be defined by what they are not. But doesn’t every NPO need to make a profit to survive—let alone to thrive?
The non-profit world would profit from adopting business practices of the for-profit world. Take publicly traded companies. They reveal financial data, and this transparency allows companies to measure themselves against benchmarks in their categories.
Say you’re opening a soup kitchen. How many people are other soup kitchens feeding per dollar they raise? It sure would be great if you could measure your organization against certain ratios or metrics.
Plus, to have the numbers of the top performers in their sector could provide impetus for NPO’s to achieve even greater things. Or if you’re struggling but your ratios are good, then you know there’s at least one unnoticed inefficiency.
The NPO sphere is in crisis. Transparent metrics could be one solution to this quagmire.
OC
There are two types of research: exploratory and descriptive.
Exploratory helps you understand market shifts and trends (although no research has yet adequately explained the trend of men wearing capri pants). Descriptive research builds on the exploratory research, as it attempts to understand the specifics of your target market’s preferences, desires and sensibilities. As its name suggests, descriptive research provides the color, the nuances…it fills in any gray space.
Both research types are indispensable—but remember, exploratory is the horse, descriptive is the cart. Doing them in reverse order would be a disaster.
Conduct exploratory research every three months. One relatively simple way is to sign up for Google Alerts. You type in keywords associated with your business, and this program will alert you whenever that term is Googled. Before long, trends will emerge, which should be shared internally. Get feedback, and decide if a descriptive study is warranted.
But, if you’re going to conduct exploratory research on a larger scale, or your circumstances call for descriptive research of any scale, make darn sure you seek out respected marketing research firm, and then meet with their principals before making your choice. You need researchers who have objectivity, who know where to source data, and who have sophisticated analytical techniques to amplify the color.
But in the meantime, start small with exploratory research, identify the trends that emerge and then conduct descriptive research to unearth insights.
OC
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